Faster-than-light Communication

Micro Wormhole Tunnel Scans

See also Gravity Manipulation

Micro Wormhole Tunnel Scans ("mic wats" or "tunnel scans") use the same technology behind the Galactic Wormhole Drive to create thousands of tiny wormholes through which a traditional active scan of a distant place can be performed with only seconds of delay instead of days, weeks, or years. A variation of the technology is used to send information across the galaxy via the Hawkingnet.

Hawkingnet

See also Gravity Manipulation

A network of scheduled wormhole transmissions that connect systems and planets across the galaxy with faster-than-light transmission. Dedicated hubs in a few thousand systems allow ships to dial in to the net with their own wormhole connections at any time to download or upload information. Most interplanetary communication takes place through this net, so that individual ships don’t have to always keep track of each other’s positions to talk. Vast arrays of quantum computers track and maintain all the communication traffic, allowing both instantaneous conversation as well as stored messages in text or video. Basically, it’s the internet of the early 21st century, except it can be accessed from anywhere in the galaxy as long as you have a Hawkingnet receiver array with you and means to power it.

Hawking Space Regional Scanner (HSRS) and Hawking Area Monitor And Telecommunicator (HAMAT)

These devices use a tiny version of the Hawking field to allow signals to be sent through sub-space. HSRS is used for long distance scanning on a ship, while HAMAT is used for short-range hand-held scanning and can be used for communication if there is a HAMAT enabled receiver on the other end. Scans performed by these technologies are virtually undetectable due to one of the more unusual quirks of sub-space, which allows normal space-time to be observed from inside sub-space, while sub-space cannot be directly observed from normal space-time. Electromagnetic radiation and especially gravity transition through the barrier with ease in one direction only and become visible on an entirely different set of frequencies than normal (ex: in sub-space, gravitational waves are detectable in a similar frequency to the radio wave segment of the normal space-time EM spectrum. This is one of the main causes for the enormous amount of noise that must be filtered to make any effective scans in sub-space).